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Novel Writing Courses and "Novel Writing on Edge" Work and Study Forums
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Novel Writing on Edge - Necessary Nuance, Strong Bewares, and Actual Results
Platitudes, entitled amateurism, popular delusions, and erroneous information are all conspicuously absent from this collection of detailed novel writing guides and maxims. From concept to query, the goal is to provide you, the aspiring novel author, with the skills and knowledge it takes to realistically compete in the novel market of the 21st century.
Labors, Sins, and Six Acts - The NWOE Novel Writing Guide
Best Ten Steps For Starting the Novel - All Genres
Writing Novel Scenes - Drama, Sex, and Sass
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Bad Novel Writing Advice - "Novel Writing On Edge"
The best "bad novel writing advice" articles culled from Novel Writing on Edge. The point isn't to axe grind, rather to warn writers about the many horrid and writer-crippling viruses that float about like asteroids of doom in the novel writing universe. From conferences to writer groups to chat boards, they never cease to appear and threaten extinction. By posting these articles, we dearly hope we can at least save a few thousand misdirected souls. Will we?
Top Worst "Worst Writer Advice"
Are Writer Groups a Really Bad Idea?
Should Workshop Leaders Give Poor Writers False Hope?
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Art and Life in Novel Writing
Writer takeaways on craft learned from the best books on plot and technique utilized in the commercial novel writing program including "The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner, "Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass, "Write Away" by Elizabeth George, and "The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard.
NOTE: the links below are selections from our AAC forum, Kara's Cabinet of Themes and Curiosities.
Writing and the Disquiet of Self Doubt
You Don't Understand Genre?
Are You Ready to Get Published Part I
Interview With Blake "Save the Cat" Snyder
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Novel Writing Program - Modules And Consults
- NOVEL WRITING PROGRAM INTRO - Where to Begin?
- Commercial Novel Writing Part I - (enter password)
- Commercial Novel Writing Part II - Modules 1 to 8
- Emerging Author Interview Series
- Novel Audit Checklist
Newly updated narrative, developmental, and editorial courses that compose the Algonkian Novel Writing Program. Crucial elements analyzed and applied include high-concept premise, counter-trait characters, Six Act Two-Goal Novel, hooks and core wounds, scene selection, set cinema, and more. All genres. Registration here. Program concludes with faculty video-consults to address final edits and query letter. Free to Algonkian alums.
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New York Pitch, Algonkian, and Shooting Galleries
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New York Pitch and Algonkian Events
For NY Pitch or Algonkian attendees or alums posting assignments related to their novel or nonfiction. Assignments include conflict levels, antagonist and protagonist sketches, plot lines, setting, and story premise. Publishers use this forum to obtain information before and after the conference event, therefore, writers should edit as necessary. Included are NY conference reviews, narrative critique sub-forums, and most importantly, the pre-event Novel Development Sitemap.
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New Worlds, New Voices - SFF Shooting Gallery
NWNV "Shooting Gallery" provides writers with the chance to test market their best SFF novels and hopefully score a contract. Agents and TV/Film reps will check in and review work during 2021. AAC will edit beforehand as needed. For Algonkian alums only.
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The Real World Genres - MS Shooting Gallery
"Real World Genres Shooting Gallery" provides writers with opportunities to test market their best novels and hopefully score a contract. Agents and TV/Film reps will check in and review work during 2021. AAC will edit beforehand as needed. For Algonkian alums only.
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Algonkian Writer Conferences - Events, FAQ, Contracts, and More.
Algonkian events nurture intimate, carefully managed environments conducive to practicing the skills and learning the knowledge necessary to approach the development and writing of a competitive commercial or literary novel. We believe you were not born to be a good or great author, but that you stand on the shoulders of great authors gone before and only by hard work will you succeed. Below are links to subject topics concerning Algonkian. Feel free to contact us with any questions or observations.
Algonkian Home Page
About Algonkian Writer Conferences
Upcoming Events and Programs
Contracts, Careers, and Comments
Frequently Asked Questions
Novel Development and Writing Forums
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AAC Desert Buffet and Bad Novel Writing Advice
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Novel Writing Advice Videos - Who Has it Right?
A forum for posting and commenting on the many (and often ridiculous) novel writing advice videos found on Youtube. Feel free to let it rip, but be respectful. Nothing derogatory concerning the speakers. The mission here is to expose and question bad novel writing advice that does not bear up under scrutiny. Members of the Algonkian Critics Film Board (ACFB) include Kara Bosshardt, Richard Hacker, Joseph Hall, Elise Kipness, Michael Neff, and Audrey Woods.
Stephen King's War on Plot
Writing a Hot Sex Scene
The "Secret" to Writing Award Winning Novels?
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Audrey's Corner - Unique Reviews for Up and Coming Authors
Book reviews taken to the next level for the benefit of aspiring authors. This includes a unique novel-development analysis of contemporary novels by Algonkian Editor Audrey Woods. If you're in the early or middle stages of novel writing, you'll get a lot from this. We cannot thank her enough and look forward to her future thoughts and manifestations.
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Kara's Cabinet of Themes and Curiosities
Best of AAC. A collection of ravels and unravels, combed feed, and worthwhile nuggets plucked from many sources here at AAC. Kara carefully selects only the best and presents them in an array certain to illuminate and entertain. Kara, where are you? Come back!
Ready to Get Published? Part I
Ready to Get Published? Part II
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Algonkian Brand Coffee - Shameless Promotion
Marketing our Algonkian Writer Conferences coffee brand. Goes perfect with Author Connect, and in so many ways. Crafted for writers by writers. A smooth, full-bodied blend of Sumatran velvet and Nicaraguan dark. Guaranteed to get your creative juices flowing. Seriously. It's damn good coffee, and if you don't like it we'll refund via Paypal. No joke.
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House of Blogs
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Crime Reads - Suspense, Thrillers, Crime, Gun!
CrimeReads is a culture website for people who believe suspense is the essence of storytelling, questions are as important as answers, and nothing beats the thrill of a good book. It's a single, trusted source where readers can find the best from the world of crime, mystery, and thrillers. No joke,
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Writer Unboxed - The "Connect Kitty" Approves
AAC can't help but deliver the best bloggish content that will inspire writers to new leaps of imagination. This one is mostly new releases, bestsellers, literary fiction historical fiction, mysteries, popular non-fiction, memoirs and biographies.
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The Fantasy Hive - A U.K. Wonderland
A hub for all things fantasy (plus some SF). Book reviews, games, author interviews, features, serial fiction- you name it. The Fantasy Hive is a collaborative site formed of unique personalities who just want to celebrate fantasy. Btw, the SFF novel to the left by one of our members, Warwick Gleeson, was a "Top 150 Best Books" Kirkus pick in 2019.
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Women on Writing - WOW and WOW!
Women On Writing is an online magazine and community for women writers. Among major topics are novel writing, indie publishing, author platform, blogging, screenwriting, and more. Lots of contests and general jocularity sans frittering on the part of Earth's most powerful humans.
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Smart Bitches, Trashy Books
Bringing you the famous and cheeky SBTB blog for romance enthusiasts. If you're into the romance genre, this is where you want to be. If you're not, avoid at all costs to preserve your sanity. Ha ha. We're just kidding. There are some good things happening in the genre. Stay Golden, Horny Girl!
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The Paris Review - A Literary Wonderland
From one of the most classic literary journals of all time, famous for its author interviews (among other things), comes the PR feed. Grab your coffee and conjure your most literary mindset cause you're going to need it. Academics and shut-ins will wet their pants over this. Ya gotta love it!
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WTF is Wrong With Stephen King?
An Algonkian Success Story
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Activity Stream
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New York Pre-Event Assignments - June 2021
#1. Story Statement: Shirin needs to break the generational pattern of abuse at the hands of narcissists through self-actualization and healing. #2. Antagonist/Antagonistic Force The antagonistic force here is a psychological one: Anti-social narcissism, defined by self-aggrandizement and a lack of empathy and remorse. Chris, the narcissistic husband that Shirin leaves, becomes the window through which she discovers and processes all the narcissists in her, her mother and grandmother’s lives. Daddy is the main antagonist of the entire story, he remains unnam -
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LGBTQ+ Psychological Fiction, Teresa A. Henderson, UNCHAINED
This is really well-written and a fascinating read, creating that sense of forbidden territory, which drives the reader to keep reading while feeling guilty for doing so. I did wonder about the age of the narrator. But more than that, what was somewhat confusing is that there are so many unnamed characters here, which is obviously a necessity since the protagonist does not know any of them but it does make things a little confusing at times. One suggestion would be to have Chris introduce by name the man who unchains the protagonist at the beginning of this, and then you can use his name.- debut
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Memoir | Adam Fout | Drug Seeking Behavior | First 500 words
As Pat said, the scene you draw here is vivid and interesting. I wonder if it wouldn't be more effective to have these characters, Fred and Jacky and Ella, converse in dialogue during the first few paragraphs so as to keep your reader "in the scene". They seem like fascinating characters, and even if some of what they say ended up being incoherent to the reader, it might be more effective at conveying what you want to reader than splitting the scene like this. They could either mention the time before, or say something that invokes the time before. And then after said dialogue, you could talk -
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New York Pre-Event Assignments - June 2021
First assignment: write your story statement. I Will Never Fall is a memoir about my 35 years of life and how I have grown and gotten through each challenge in life. Second assignment: in 200 words or less, sketch the antagonist or antagonistic force in your story. Keep in mind their goals, their background, the ways they react to the world around them. Antagonist: My mom, my dad, my half-brother who molested me, the bullies I faced throughout my childhood, my disease, my spending addiction, my eating disorder. Third assignment: create a breakout title. I Will Rise. -
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Remembering Janet Malcolm
Janet Malcolm and Katie Roiphe in conversation at NYU, 2012. Photo courtesy of Roiphe. In one of my last email exchanges with Janet Malcolm, in one of the darkest parts of the pandemic, she wrote to me, “I can only try to imagine the hard time you and the children are having. How can you not be stalled on writing? I wish there was something I could do to help.” Her response warmed me, elevating my state of general stagnancy into something almost socially acceptable. The idea of her in my house, helping with my son’s online schooling—his teacher was reading out “rat facts” during his daily for -
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Limited Time Deals!
Right now, Amazon is running their Kindle Daily Deals but also seven whole pages of “limited time” deals. They don’t specify for how limited these are, though my guess is that these are in preparation for Prime Day. House of Earth and Blood House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas is $2.99! We did two podcast episodes with Sarah over the pandemic and honestly, those episodes were so much fun to record. Ellen wrote a fantast -
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Tough Travelling: Fairies
Welcome intrepid adventurers to Tough Travelling with the Tough Guide to Fantasyland! That’s right, we’ve dusted it down and brought back this feature (created by Nathan of Fantasy Review Barn, revived by our friends over on Fantasy Faction, then dragged kicking and screaming to the Hive). It is a monthly feature in which we rack our brains for popular (and not so popular) examples of fantasy tropes. Tough Travelling is inspired by the informative and hilarious Tough Guide to Fantasyland by Diana Wynne Jones. Fellow bloggers are absolutely welcome to join in – just make your own list, publi -
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Memoir | Adam Fout | Drug Seeking Behavior | First 500 words
@Adam Fout This is powerful and instantly draws you into the darkness that's all around. You have some vivid descriptions and characterizations. I have to preface this to say I don't write memoir.... but I would love to hear/see more of the protagonist's characterization in the opening scene. We see everyone around him/her but we still know nothing about the storyteller. About 3/4 the way through at "I wonder what they used to be like...." this takes us out of the scene - for three paragraphs the protagonist seems to be preaching - it's powerful statements and I love them - but maybe move it -
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The BLFUfer’s Guide To… THE WOOD BEE QUEEN by Edward Cox (BOOK REVIEW)
Apparently, there is an opposite to TL:DR (too long didn’t read) and it’s BLFU – Bottom Line First Up And so we bring you our new feature from our new reviewer Hil: to-the-point reviews for those of you in a hurry! The BLFUfer’s Guide To… THE WOOD BEE QUEEN by Edward Cox Ebbie Wren has a dead end job, in a dead end town and is in love with a girl who thinks he’s boring. At best. His only regular confidante is a homeless woman who dies and leaves him with an empty bag and a quest to do the impossible. Thus the story begins. The prose is beautiful and evocative, combining hints of -
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The Value of Friendship in Storytelling
You know how a realization about your storytelling can strike when you’re reading someone else? Of course you do. How about the kind of realization that makes you regret not having it sooner, so that you could have been taking advantage of it all along? You’re probably still nodding, right? Okay, how about one that’s so utterly obvious that you feel like an idiot for having never consciously utilized it before? How about a realization in regard to an aspect of human nature that is so elemental to each of us that we’ve all partaken in it since our earliest memories—one that is an essential par -
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10 New Books Coming Out This Week
Another week, another batch of books for your TBR pile. Happy reading, folks. * Laura Lippman, Dream Girl (William Morrow) “Lippman never stops twisting the plot into a deliciously intricate pretzel, right up to the jaw-dropping finale. This is both a beguiling look at the mysteries of authorship and a powerful #MeToo novel, but that’s only the tip of a devilishly jagged iceberg…” –Booklist Nicci French, What To Do If Someone Dies (William Morrow) “Crisply written, intelligently plotted and has plenty to say about the necessary selfishness of grief.” –The Guardian Joe -
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The Early, Wild, Exploited, and Sometimes Radical Days of the Comic Book Industry in America
The American comic book is inseparable from foreign policy, the great twentieth-century battles between capitalism and totalitarianism, and the political goals of the world’s preeminent military and cultural power. The history of the American comic book is a story of visual culture, commerce, race, and policy. These four fields are analogous to the four colors used to print comic books: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. They lie atop one another, smearing, blending, and bleeding to create a complete image. To separate them is to disassemble a coherent whole and to shatter a picture that in its -
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A Murder in Tiger Bay: How Nadifa Mohamed’s New Novel Revives a Decades-Old Tragedy
In 1952 a 29-year old Somalian man was hanged at Her Majesty’s Prison Cardiff in Wales by Britain’s best known public executioner Albert Pierrepoint. After a long drawn-out detention, a highly questionable police investigation, and a speedy trial at the Glamorgan Assizes in Swansea, Mahmood Mattan had been found guilty of murdering shopkeeper Lily Volpert in the then notorious Tiger Bay area of the Welsh capital. Despite arguments from his lawyers Mattan was refused leave to appeal by the Home Secretary. Forty-six years after Mattan’s execution, and 34 years after the death penalty was finall -
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Queer Crime Fiction: A Roundtable Discussion
I have discovered the secret to making a great roundtable: Alex Segura. If Alex is involved, or I get interested in a book by someone Alex has introduced me to, it’s a breeze to fill our imaginary table. This time I wanted to focus on the positives and negatives LGBTQ+ writers face. I’ve been thinking about it ever since we did the sex roundtable: if we rarely see any vanilla sex, then all of the other flavors are probably not being served either. Anyway, this came about because of PJ Vernon’s excellent new thriller, Bath Haus, and his enthusiastic participation at the aforementioned sex rou -
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Your Next Level Life Reader Review Event And Giveaway
Today, I am excited to announce the launch of a special reader review event with author Karen Arrington. Today, our readers are sharing their insights into her book Your Next Level Life: 7 Rules of Power, Confidence, and Opportunity for Black Women in America. You'll have the chance to find more about this book―which won an NAACP Image Award in 2020―and more about the author, Karen Arrington, herself. Join us as we celebrate this book and this inspiring author. First, here's more about the book: If you’re a Black woman in business and feeling stuck or trapped by other people’s expectations of -
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Eclipse by Celia Lake
Squee Eclipse by Celia Lake May 5, 2021 Historical: EuropeanRomanceScience Fiction/Fantasy I came to Eclipse via these two tweets shared on Twitter. It was the second one which really got me. I love a good magical school story, but the Harry Potter books never quite worked for me. Eclipse, which promised a view from the staff room of a magical school in the 1920s, sounded like my catnip. (Also, the author’s page has a content warning t -
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New York Pre-Event Assignments - June 2021
Assignment 1, the story statement Three generations of Southern women have visions of dramatic events they don’t want and can't control, while navigating issues like potentially losing their organic farm and dealing with abusive people. The story alternates between modern-day Texas where Raine Walker tries to avoid and stop the visions that won’t leave her alone, and 1960s Tennessee, where Raine’s grandma Anna Mae obsessively follows her visions, considering them to be absolute truth. Ultimately, both women wind up in grave danger, and have to search out their own purposes in life. A
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